When it comes to PC computers, there are basically two styles to choose from: a plastic box, or a flashy case with LED lights for gamers. What if neither of those two options fits your personal style? Monkey Bidouille has an aesthetically pleasing solution for you.

Don spoke with Antoine from Monkey Bidouille at CES 2018. The company is made of just two people. They have created a PC case that is made of wood and aluminum. It uses noble materials, and is handmade in France. Their PC case is designed to sit horizontally. You can put whatever components you want to inside the case.

Monkey Bidouille brought a prototype of their PC case to CES 2018. They launched a Kickstarter shortly before CES 2018, with a limit of 50 units. Their plan is to eventually make it possible for people to customize the design of the PC case when they place their order on the website. The wood can be screen printed, in a similar way to how the designs are placed on skateboards.

Our shoes protect our feet from the environment. E-Vone has created a smart shoe that can provide a different kind of protection. These shoes send an alert when the wearer has fallen down and enables a rescue team to find that person.

Don spoke with Anne from E-Vone. They have created a smart shoe with technology that can detect when the wearer has fallen. The shoe instantly sends an alarm through the secure cloud to a rescue team. After that, the smart shoe vibrates to let the wearer know that a rescue team is coming to help them.

The shoe was designed for more than one population. There is a version designed for workers who work in isolated situations. This shoe is durable and has a steel toe. Another version of the shoe was designed for older people who want to stay in their own homes instead of in an assisted living situation. E-Vone makes comfortable smart shoes in styles for women and styles for men.

To make this work, E-Vone is selling a service. It requires a service fee (of 30 Euros a month). The person pays for the service and leases the shoes. They receive a new pair of smart shoes each year. E-Vone will start selling this service in France and Europe in September of 2018. They intend to release the service in the United States and Japan in two years.

Mobile gaming is fun, but there are limitations. While some video games are specifically designed to be played on a smartphone or tablet, most are not. This leaves gamers with the frustrating problem of trying to play a game that doesn’t function very well with touchscreens. Gamevice solves this problem by turning your smartphone into a console device.

Todd spoke with Rob from Gamevice at CES 2018. Gamevice is the name of the both the company and the product.

Gamevice is a controller that hooks onto the lightning port on your smartphone. It gives immediate feedback on any game you are playing. It turns games that are really poor on a touchscreen into games that actually have a chance to be played on a mobile device. Gamevice lets you easily play Minecraft, Grand Theft Auto, MOBA’s like Lineage, Street Fighter, and more video games on a mobile device. They have about 1,000 games in their catalog.

Gamevice can be tightened up in the back. It fits anything for a iPhone 6 to an iPhone X, is compatible with Android phones, and can be used on iPads and iPad minis. You can purchase Gamevice for $79.99 at Apple, Costco, or Best Buy.

Todd Cochrane is the host of the twice-weekly Geek News Central Podcast at GeekNewsCentral.com.

Geiger counters are great for detecting and measuring ionising radiation but their biggest flaw is that they can’t discriminate between the different types of radiation; alpha, beta or gamma. Icohup‘s Rium detector addresses this with a compact and stylishly wooden unit. Allante and Billy discuss the benefits of radiation detectors without mentioning a single nuclear disaster.

Winner of a CES Innovation award, Icohup’s Rium uses scintillation spectrometry technology to not only detect levels of ionising radiation but also the type. This means that the Rium can determine if the radioactivity is natural or industrial, or if it’s a Cobalt, Uranium or Cesium source. The Rium unit is about the size of a packet of biscuits and is tastefully made of wood. Not sure if there’s a scientific reason for this, though it looks good anyway, and the small size means that it can be carried by a drone to record radioactivity in potentially hazardous areas.

Data is collected and displayed by a nearby smartphone and with geotagging of the radiation information, maps can be built easily to show radiation hotspots. The data can be transferred either by Bluetooth or by USB.

The Rium will be available shortly from Icohup for €399 (about US$500).

The popularity of craft beer has ensured a steady stream of smart gadgetry that helps ferment and brew the perfect pint. Here we have the HOPii personal microbrewery which successfully crowdfunded on Kickstarter in the autumn raising US$380,000. Allante drinks it in with Jong, CEO of HOPii.

The HOPii advertises itself as a one touch brewery – put the ingredient pods into HOPii device and press START. HOPii does the rest and brews the craft beer for you at its perfection. The HOPii beer pack contains all the ingredients needed – a three-litre bottle of wort, some dry hops and other flavors plus a pack of yeast. The pre-prepared wort gives the HOPii a bit of a headstart, as it were, and the smart features of the HOPii control the internal environment to develop the best beer.

If you want to do your own thing, HOPii has a special “Brewer’s Mode” so you can ferment your own personal craft beer with your specific ingredients. You can put in your own custom recipe into HOPii and ferment your own wort, dry hop, flavours and once ready, set it to the beer’s best drinking temperature or your personal preference.

Although the Kickstarter has finished, it’s now “InDemand” over at Indiegogo for US$399 and delivery in June 2018. Cheers!

Geek News Central is seeking two additional contract paid tech writers. Our requirements are pretty simple. We do not accept writers that are contracted to do pay to play articles. All content on GNC is original with topics we feed the team to original pieces that the writers want to cover.

Applicants should submit 2 original tech article that they have written and certify in writing that they are not currently working for any pay per post agency or firm where they have been given topics to cover.

This is an opportunity to write original pieces on topics that are newsworthy or making the news. Drop an email to Todd @ geeknews@gmail.com for consideration.

Often there can be no outward signs of mental health illness but some people exhibit unhealthy behaviours such as hair pulling, skin picking and nail biting. The team at HabitAware are helping address these physical symptoms of mental health issues with a wearable device that picks up on these cues. Allante tries it out with Aneela.

The HabitAware Keen is a wrist-worn wearable that’s very similar in style to a fitness tracker. The Keen uses gesture-detection technology to recognise when the wearer is engaging in behaviours associated with poor mental health. For most people, biting their nails is just a bad habit, but for many with mental health issues, it’s a symptom of something much more serious.

The way Keen works is by initially training the device to recognise problem behaviours. Using a smartphone app (iOS and Android), the wearer replicates his or her behaviours for a short period. So if it’s hair-pulling, this is simulated for around 15 to 20 seconds. Once Keen has been trained, it vibrates when the behaviour is detected and alerts the wearer to their subconscious habit. The wearer can make the decision to stop and overtime, retrains the brain away from negative behaviours.

The Keen bracelet is available now from HabitAware priced from US$149.

Being “in the zone” reflects that total mental focus and clarity that comes to people concentrating hard. For athletes and professionals, it can take years of practice and hard work. For us mere mortals, BrainCo offers a way to learn how to focus. How? Professor Don gets all brainy with Max.

The idea behind BrainCo is to use their Focus One headband with gamification to improve mental concentration. The BrainCo band reads small electrical impulses in the wearer’s brain and picks up on changes in the frequency and amplitude of the impulses (EEG). As everyone’s brains are different the band establishes a personal baseline and works on changes from that baseline to understand when the person is relaxed, focussed or distracted.

While wearing the Focus One headband, the owner plays a smartphone game which takes information from the headband and responds as the wearer mentally focusses. Simply, the person has to focus to do well in the game. Overtime, the person learns how to focus their mind.

The BrainCo Focus One reinforces good mental behaviour and this can be especially useful for children who have learning difficulties such as ADHD, but it also has application in ensuring that teachers are engaging with their students.

The FocusOne isn’t yet available to buy but if you are interested, you can register on the BrianCo website for an early bird discount.

I received the Apple Homepod and I have some thoughts on where this device stands. Detailed commentary about HomePod on the show. As all of you know I am flying out for my daughter’s wedding celebration on Thursday. Kirk the Executive Producer of the show will be standing in and being the guest host while I am out. Thursday’s show will be his first podcast so it should be an exciting episode.

OWC is one of the stalwarts of the Mac world, bringing enhancements and accessories to Apple devices year after year. Let’s be honest, this is the team that gives you back the ports that Apple takes away. This time round, OWC is expanding its range of Thunderbolt 3 products. Don finds out what’s new with AJ from OWC.

Incredibly, OWC is celebrating its 30th anniversary: the company started when Apple launched the iMac – remember the ones with the fruitcoloured cases? Today, OWC offer products for both Windows and Mac, and in particular, there’s a new Thunderbolt 3 dock out with support for both OSes. The new dock “offers 12 ports including dual Thunderbolt 3, five USB 3.1, Gigabit Ethernet, S/PDIF, combo audio, Mini DisplayPort, SD Card Slot, and supports laptop charging”. Sadly, there’s no Firewire but if you need that, check out the older version. Available in Q1 2018, it’s priced at either US$279 or US$299. Video says one, press release says the other.

Also of interest to speed freaks is the ThunderBlade v4, which is the fastest external drive on the market today, shifting an astonishing 2800 MB/s read and 2450 MB/s write. It’s pricey with MSRP from US$1,199 (1 TB) to US$4,999 (8TB), but you get what you pay for and I’m sure it’ll be in demand from video producers. Again, there’s a difference in price between video and press release.